Brenda L Croft

https://brendalcroft.com/

https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/brenda-croft/

Brenda L Croft is a First Nations woman from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra Peoples from the Victoria River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with Anglo-Australian/Chinese/German/Irish/Scottish heritage. Brenda is Nangari skin, with totems being Ngarlu (‘sugarbag’ or native honey) & Tikirrija (red-backed kingfisher). For four decades Brenda has undertaken a leading role in national & international First Nations and broader contemporary arts/cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner (academic, administrator, artist, curator, educator, researcher, scholar). Brenda’s creative-led research encompasses Critical Indigenous Performative Collaborative Autoethnography & Storywork methodologies and theoretical frameworks. For over three decades she has worked closely with her patrilineal family & community, and also with local & regional First communities in the ACT/NSW.

As an academic, artist, curator & project manager Brenda’s work with Australian and international First Nations/Indigenous communities spans more than four decades. These connections grew from her father, Joseph Croft’s cultural work in the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs & Aboriginal Development Commission in the 1970s – 80s, & ongoing independent cultural work & First Nations/Indigenous advocacy until his death in 1996.

In 2024 Brenda was the Gough Whitlam & Malcolm Fraser Visiting Chair of Australian Studies, Harvard University, being the inaugural First Nations female academic to be selected for this prestigious program, initiated in 1976, living & working on the Ancestral Homelands of the Massachusett for the year. As part of her tenure Brenda delivered courses on Australian First Nations art, culture, film, politics & representation in the Departments of History of Art & Architecture; Art, Film & Visual Studies; & Division of Continuing Education, Summer Extension School. During her Harvard tenure Brenda also organised Ancestral Futures: Indigenous Cardinal Relations, a three-day gathering/symposium comprising keynote & respondent, film screening, panel discussions by, from & with international Indigenous critical thinkers & creative-led researchers: academics, creative practitioners, collection stewards, curators, educators, researchers & scholars. Participants critically analysed positionalities and relationalities within their respective un/settler-colonial nation-states & on inter/intra/national homelands, considering work over the last four decades & what is required to strengthen collective Ancestral Futures.

In 2025 Brenda was elected to the AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies) Council. Also in 2025, a selection of works from her ongoing series Naabámi (thou shall/will see): Barangaroo (army of me) were included in ON COUNTRY: Photography from Australia, for Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France. A larger selection of Naabámi were exhibited at the Embassy of Australia, Washington DC, USA, 8 July 2024 – 7 February 2025; The National 4, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2023); and Sydney Festival 2023 at Barangaroo Precinct, Sydney, and for Dyin Nura (Women’s Place), Parramatta Park. Her work is represented in major national & international public and private collections & she has received numerous awards, commissions and grants (academic and creative-led research).

In 2024 Brenda was elected to the Australian Research Council College of Experts, and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Board. Brenda is Professor of Indigenous Art History & Curatorship at the Australian National University with her ANU affiliation dating from 1982. She is privileged to live and work on unceded sovereign Ngambri/Ngunawal homelands.

Co-Chair, First Nations Advisory Committee, Museum of Australian Democracy-Old Parliament House

Deputy Chair, Council, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)

Member, College of Experts, Australian Research Council

Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Chair of Australian Studies (2024), Harvard University, USA

Research projects, selected (2025 - 26):


I pay my deepest respect & acknowledgements to all  First Nations/Indigenous Ancestors, Custodians and Rising Generations on whose traditional sovereign lands I am privileged to live and work in Australia, and overseas.

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